First blog of 2015 so I thought I’d attempt something a
little bit spectacular, which naturally meant something with lots of
components, and all of which need incredibly complicated procedures (for me to
do anyway) and took up a whole 2 days, the whole time my mother having spasm
attacks at the state of her kitchen. I got the idea from The Fox and Barrel’s
New Years Eve menu: Dark Chocolate Delice, topped with chocolate jelly and
brittle, with a white chocolate cylinder filled with raspberry mousse and scattered
with honeycomb. Their version was absolutely delicious so I thought I’d give it
a go myself.
The first part I tried was the actual delice, from what I
gathered from the Fox and Barrel Chefs it’s kind of like an ice cream except
instead of freezing and stirring and freezing and stirring; you just stir it
and let it set once. Basically you heat milk and double cream, then add eggs,
whisk and pray it doesn’t curdle, then add the chocolate and pour into a mould.
Simple you might say, but as soon as that egg curdles, you’re screwed. Good
luck.
Next was the mousse. Found a lovely recipe online which
included raspberry liqueur, so I obviously picked that one over all the others.
But after looking like an alcoholic wandering up and down the spirits isle in Sainsbury’s
and not finding anything except raspberry sours, ew, I settled instead for
Stella Raspberry Cider. Unfortunately, when I then went to get the raspberries
the whole world and his mother had decided that they apparently needed
raspberries too. So back to square one, I rang my dad and he said we had some
crème de cassis somewhere so I should get some blackcurrants. But I misheard
him and got blackberries instead. But oh well it still tasted nice, even if it
was a bit seedy, but you can’t exactly sieve a mousse can you?
I was a little confused at how to make a chocolate jelly,
but then realised it’s just a chocolate flavoured panna cotta, so that was
simple enough. But the honeycomb was more caramel than anything else, whoops.
But it was almost perfectly shaped like Australia, so I’ve got that going for
me which is nice. Also did you know that honeycomb doesn’t actually have honey
in it? Weird.
Making the chocolate brittle was probably my favourite part,
although I had to restrain myself from popping all the bubbles before I
actually made it. Make sure you wash the bubble wrap first, you don’t know
where it’s been. The selloptape it to a baking tray, melt your chocolate, pour
it over and let it set in the fridge. And then when it’s done, peel off the
bubble wrap, smash the chocolate into pieces and pop all the bubbles.
After speaking to the Fox and Barrel chefs and watching
about 100 YouTube tutorials, I decided that I had no idea how to make a white
chocolate cylinder filled with raspberry (blackberry) mousse, so instead I made
white chocolate and blackberry truffles. I filled up an ice cube tray half way
with melted white chocolate, and let it set in the fridge. Then I piped in a
little bit of the mousse and poured more white chocolate over the top. For some
reason the chocolate went a bit gloopy, but once it was set you couldn’t tell.
I tried to copy the Fox and Barrels plating up, piping the
jelly and the mousse onto the plate, but as I’m not very good with a piping bag
yet, it looked really messy, so I hid most of it with the chocolate truffles
and the rest I turned into ‘artistic smears’. Then there was a bit of trouble
getting the delice out of the mould, I had to melt most of it to get it out so
it ended up being a wonky cylinder shape, but if I angled it on the plate right
when I took a picture you couldn’t really tell. Then I just scattered all the
other bits on the plate with a couple of blackberries and tadaaaah! Dark
chocolate delice and white chocolate and blackberry truffles, with chocolate
jelly, chocolate brittle and bits of caramel. Yum.
As usual I made far too much of everything so used the
leftovers to make mini chocolate pots, which disappeared from the fridge in
hours. Thanks to the Fox and Barrel for giving the idea to make this delicious
dessert.
You definitely need to try these lovely
little iced teas, my favourite so far is the
white tea.
